Texas Oil Jack
| 🛢️ | |
| Era | The Sixties |
|---|---|
| Age | 45-60 |
| Home | Houston, TX |
| Demographic | urban, white, oil executive |
| Lean | business_conservative |
| Race | white |
Jack is a Houston oilman who started on the rig floor and now owns his own drilling company. He is part of the Sunbelt business class, a conservative Democrat becoming a Republican, and he represents the oil industry that built modern Texas.
Who they stand for
The Texas oil industry is protected by government policy. The state's Railroad Commission fixes how much oil producers can extract, the 1959 import quotas keep foreign crude out of the country, and the federal depletion allowance has let producers deduct 27.5 per cent of their income from tax since 1926. Kennedy proposes cutting the depletion allowance in 1963, Johnson protects it instead, and Congress eventually trims it to 22 per cent in 1969. Houston also benefits from federal spending, even though its businessmen publicly denounce federal spending. The Manned Spacecraft Center arrives in the city in 1961.
The party that this group of voters belongs to is changing under it. John Tower wins Johnson's old Senate seat for the Republicans in 1961, George Bush wins a Houston seat in the House of Representatives in 1966, and the state's governor, John Connally, is a Democrat who governs like an oilman. Wall Street Henry wants free trade and a stable dollar, while Jack wants import quotas and a tax code written to favour drillers, so they are becoming Republicans for different reasons. Dixiecrat Dale is a Southern Democrat leaving the party over race. Jack is leaving the party over money.
Playing to them
Jack responds to the depletion allowance being left untouched, import quotas being kept in place, the absence of price controls, an Interior Department that leases land freely for drilling, federal contracts awarded to Houston, and a president who backs anti-communist talk with action. A Democrat who protects the depletion allowance and spends heavily on space and defence, as Johnson does, keeps Jack's support longer than his rhetoric would suggest.
Jack does not forgive a tax reform that reaches the depletion allowance, an antitrust suit against the major oil companies, a price ceiling, an environmental regulation, or a Great Society programme that becomes a tax bill for him to pay. Winning Jack's support costs the support of Faculty Eleanor and Campus David, and of Reservation Mary, because the leased land is often on Native American reservations. His support for import quotas costs the support of Wall Street Henry and Country Club Richard, who trade with the countries Jack wants excluded. His preferred tax code costs the support of Union Hall Frank and Appalachian Earl, who pay more tax as a result. Prairie Ruth, Ranch Hand Clyde, Goldwater Barry Jr and Dixiecrat Dale share Jack's views and stay with him.
Where they live
The five states where Texas Oil Jack makes up the largest share of the electorate in the sixties:
- Connecticut
- Texas
- Oklahoma
- Delaware
- New Hampshire